highlights

Thanks for joining me at a new beginning of my blog :) Over 15 months have passed without an update, but I’m here now to revitalize this space! I’m not one for making New Year’s resolutions so I won’t make any presidential promises about the blog… besides, I’m more about SMART goals anyway :P

In a clean up attempt, I switched to a simpler blog theme that conveniently hides the unruly, old menu behind the menu icon in the top right of this page :) You can navigate to old blog posts through the Archives or by clicking the “Older Posts” button at the bottom of the Home page. The half-finished SA Refs Academy (Maties) content is still hanging around in the sitemap links.

Some numbers!Woah! That’s a lot! A lot has happened since my last post- there’s been a ton of rugby, thousands of lessons learned, and buckets of fun, so please stay tuned!

More on this weekend at the National Development Summit, New Year’s Resolutions, and 2016 Highlights after the jump.

Frodo: You’re late.Gandalf: A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.…Frodo: What happened, Gandalf? Why didn’t you meet us?Gandalf: I was…delayed.

My apologies, dedicated blog readers and followers, for my negligence of this blog for the past 2 weeks. Although I wasn’t trapped in Isengard fighting evil adversaries, I have been quite busy living, learning, and breathing rugby. The internet and power outages haven’t helped either, but I can’t blame them – I’ve dropped the ball. It’s harder for me to write comprehensive blog posts than to post a few small updates here and there so as a reminder,

I’ve been updating each of these more frequently than this blog, especially the “Maties Dailies” page. On the daily schedule spreadsheet I also threw together a list of reffing gigs we’ve had in the past 3 weeks. For me, I’ve officiated 32 match-ups (since they’re not full 80 minute games) in 3 weeks! WOW!!!!! SA has an AMAZING rugby culture.

Since it’s getting pretty late tonight and I have to be awake in less than 8 hours for a morning stadium stairs (“trappe” in Afrikaans) fitness session, I’ll keep it short, but I promise to update more often for the rest of my South African adventure! Perhaps I’ll stick to highlights instead of comprehensive recollections about every single day? Here’s a quick preview:

Week 2 highlights:

Went to Cape Town, visited the Springbok Museum!

On-field vision session

Ran Bergpad (4k mountain trail) in under 20 minutes

Got a record (among the 5 of us academy refs) on the Micro machine in Vision Lab!

Fantastic time reffing youth tournament in Durbanville and chatting with the kids

HYPE FOR SATURDAY

Week 3 highlights:

3 day U15s Tournament with best teams in the country

Reffed 1st club game in Western Province

Went to the beach

A lot of improvement in long term shoulder injury (AC joint)

Collected TONS of data!!! (Film, audio, feedback)

AR’d SA U20 Junior World Cup team trials

TV, Rainbows, New friends

It’s been 1 year as of Sunday April 6th since my very first game as a referee!!

More details to come soon so stay tuned! Here are a few pictures that add a little more flavor to SA than my typical photo of a beautiful pitch and beautiful weather :)

The boys on a sunny afternoon of trials. Clockwise from top left: Kahlil, Geoff, Ryan, EvanMy third Sunday: our house from the back yard (where I foam roll by the pool), a typical lunch at the local school, and a scene from the Eikestad mall.Interesting “& Or” juice labels and anti-chugging double cap straw contraption.